After the brilliant success of her “Mozart y Mambo” project, Sarah Willis is returning to Cuba. This time the Berlin Philharmonic hornist sets out together with the “Havana Lyceum Orchestra” on a musical road trip to showcase the traditional Cuban music, bringing viewers and listeners into even more intense and lively contact with its roots and traditions. With them, the musicians bring a very special commissioned work: Sarah Willis has commissioned six young Cuban composers to compose a “Cuban Dance Suite” in six movements – for strings, Cuban percussion and solo horn in a fresh and modern adaption of traditional Cuban dances: Son, Danzón, Guaguanco, Cha-Cha, Bolero and Changüi. Each movements of the dance suite is premiered at the place it originated. The result is a composition in six movements that simultaneously draws a map of Cuba and its history. The “Cuban Dance Suite” not only provides the musical thread to the film, but also the road map for Cuba and its musical heritage.
Festive Gala at the Semperoper Dresden: From Berlin to Broadway – The Golden Twenties
The Semperoper Dresden invites the public into the New Year with songs, hits and operetta classics from Berlin to Broadway: In the festive ambiance of the Semper Opera House, the audience of the New Year’s Eve concert, which have now become a tradition, can expect lively melodies from the “Golden Twenties”. Under the direction of Christian Thielemann, excerpts from “Metropolis” will be heard alongside well-known film hits from the heyday of cinema in the transition from silent to sound film. Berlin as the glorious center of a new, independent operetta era and New York with its Broadway musicals and George Gershwin’s “Rhapsody in Blue”, played by Igor Levit, are the musical focal points of the program.
Beethoven‘s Nine: Ode to Humanity
In early 2023, filmmaker Larry Weinstein set out to make a documentary about Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony. It was supposed to be about how far we have come in the two undred years since it was written. But when world events pull Larry into his own film, the question becomes a deeply personal one. Beethoven’s Nine is a documentary about music, but also about war and hope. It follows nine unique individuals, including Ukrainian musicians, a deaf composer, a Polish rock star, a best-selling author, a legendary cartoonist and Weinstein himself, as they try to better understand the legacy of Beethoven’s Ninth, the composer’s own struggles, the inspiration music can provide and how humanity continues to look for hope even in the darkest times.
Die schweigsame Frau
Die schweigsame Frau (The Silent Woman), the first and only joint work by Richard Strauss and Stefan Zweig, was performed for the first time at the Staatsoper Unter den Linden. The opera embodies comic opera in a new and unexpected way, starting with the genre name, which Strauss used here for the first and only time in his career. Compositionally, it is his most progressive work. With his new production of Richard Strauss’ opera, director Jan Philipp Gloger places social issues such as loneliness and housing shortages at the centre of the opera. The superb cast brings his ideas to life with “energetic performance and balanced vocal power” (Süddeutsche Zeitung). “What Thielemann conjures up from the orchestra pit is classical cinema at its finest.” (BZ)
Festive Gala at the Semperoper Dresden: Beethoven Symphony No. 9
“Everyone loves Beethoven’s ‘Ninth’,” says Christian Thielemann. Performing it with the Sächsische Staatskapelle was “one of the most beautiful things that has happened to me in my life”. For many it is the soundtrack for New Year’s Eve ever since Arthur Nikisch conducted this landmark in symphonic history over the turn of the year 1918/19 and established a tradition that has spread worldwide. New Year’s Eve was also the occasion for this concert performed in the festively lit Semperoper. Camilla Nylund, Christa Mayer, Klaus Florian Vogt and Georg Zeppenfeld form the vocal quartet of this performance, Christian Thielemann conducts the Staatskapelle Dresden and the Sächsischer Staatsopernchor Dresden. “Thielemann led the orchestra with composure […], made the music […] a sound speech, celebrated the melody in the slow movement. [The finale] culminated in a veritable thundering of joy.“ (Sächsiche Zeitung)
Jordi Savall conducts Mozart’s Requiem
The Catalan old master, conductor, gambist and musicologist Jordi Savall, one of the greatest interpreters of historically informed performance practice, joins the Mozart Music Week with his orchestra “Le Concert des Nations” and his “Capella de Catalunya” choir. Playing exclusively on original instruments or instruments built according to historical specifications, Savall juxtaposes two of Mozart’s most famous and popular works: his Serenade No. 13, K. 525, better known by its nickname “Eine kleine Nachtmusik”, and his Requiem, which remained unfinished and has since been the subject of wildest speculation and mysterious conspiracy theories. “The performers succeed in making the well-known piece sound fresh and by no means banal. […] Despite the many excellent perfor mances available on record, Savall’s interpretation sounded unique.” (Das Opernmagazin)
Salzburg Festival 2022: Lang Lang & Daniel Barenboim
“Lang Lang makes the garlands of sound sparkle with crystal clarity” (Wiener Zeitung) Ever since its first performances in 2007, the concerts of Daniel Barenboim’s West- Eastern Divan Orchestra have been among the first to be sold out at the Salzburg Festival. In 2022, the orchestra presents a Spanish night with Lang Lang as soloist. PROGRAM Ravel: Rapsodie espagnole for Orchestra, Boléro; de Falla: Noches en los jardines de España for piano and orchestra; Debussy: “Ibéria“ from Images pour orchestre
¡Cincuentañero! – Rolando Villazón’s 50th Birthday Gala
Rolando Villazón assembles his friends, all of them prominent guests, for a festive gala concert. The first part of the performance is dedicated to his musical heartfelt friend Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, followed by “hits” from opera, operetta and popular songs from Europe and Mexico in the second part. The singers are accompanied by the Camerata Salzburg under Lithuanian conductor Giedre Šlekyte. “A showcase of great operatic voices” (Salzburger Nachrichten)
Diana Damrau and Jonas Kaufmann – Lieder
Diana Damrau and Jonas Kaufmann interpret love songs by the two important romantic song composers Robert Schumann and Johannes Brahms. In their concert evening full of stirring emotions, the stars of the classical world sing of love in all its facets: from reverie and longing, from the happiness of fulfilment to disappointment, resignation and renunciation. The two artists are accompanied by their longtime partner on the piano, Helmut Deutsch.“A deeply felt, rapturous performance” (The Guardian)
Salzburg Festival 2021: Currentzis conducts Mozart
The concerts of Greek-Russian conductor Teodor Currentzis and his musicAeterna orchestra are often more of an art performance and sacred act than just the brilliant interpretation of a musical work and are among the highlights in classical musical life. The focus of the concert by Teodor Currentzis and musicAeterna at the Salzburg Festival 2021 was on two works – the symphonies K 550 and K 551, W.A. Mozart’s final contributions to the premier class of orchestral music. “It was just a stirring concert.” (Süddeutsche Zeitung) PROGRAM: Mozart: “Alzai le flebili voci al signor” Cantata K. 469; Symphony K. 550, Maurerische Trauermusik, Symphony K. 551 “Jupiter”, Aria “Non mi dir” from Don Giovanni